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Discussions over what math is worth teaching often focuses on what specific skills end up being used in some practical context. But my feeling is that the real
by whatgoodisaroad 6y ago
Discussions over what math is worth teaching often focuses on what specific skills end up being used in some practical context.
But my feeling is that the real value of teaching math is how it introduces whole categories of abstract thinking. I've probably never actually used calculus practically, but in school it opened up a whole new world of practical analytical thinking to me, which, in itself, had very little to do with math or numbers.
- jschwartzi 6y agoI learned more about how to think from studying Euclid's Elements than I did from most of my other college classes. The professor was very up-front that it is a model for how our notion of the world can be built up from some basic assumptions. It actually made me much better at everything else, more so than explicitly studying higher-level calculus would have. It also helps drive home the idea that what a thing is is not the same as our conceptual model.